Ocean House Project

[Walt]

So like a lot of SU modelers I saw this resort on the web http://www.oceanhouseri.com several years ago and said to myself " I can model that". So I've worked on it for a couple years and mostly laid it aside but picked it up more recently.
Considering all the people here that do a fantastic job of modeling and rendering I haven't posted much, but it's time to lay aside my inhibitions and ask for help and C&C The following are my on going status I guess.

This is a WIP

[Walt]

Now bear in mind I have no dimensions what so ever. So all has been guess work for the length, height and depth of the building not to mention the roof pitch, or stairway tread and risers, sizes of the windows and everything else I guess thats the challenge for me.
A side note my father was an Architect but he's with Frank Lloyd Wright now.
So this a quick render of the side and front w/o vegetation and entourage but where I'm having more problems is getting the shadows right. They seem to dark to me . I've played around with the exposure and gamma, but changing settings in the Edit Environment dialogue box has proved . SU has a setting for Light and Dark shadows but doesn't seem to have an effect on the render. Maybe I need to go back to some Sun and Shadows tutorial (never hurts to learn more).

[Fletch]

...my father was an Architect but he's with Frank Lloyd Wright now.

So this a quick render of the side and front w/o vegetation and entourage but where I'm having more problems is getting the shadows right. They seem to dark to me .

Low+ doesn't have enough final gather info to lighten the shadows - render with Easy 08 will result in lighter shadows. Easy09 is great too.

Easy Low is for test rendering.

[Walt]

Thank you, Fletch I need all all help I can get. Will post those soon.

[Walt]

Some updates and still learning. CC most welcome Not as realistic as would like to see.

[Fletch]

Camera TIP: When setting up your scene view choose the magnifying glass tool and then hold the SHIFT key while dragging with your mouse up or down, this will put you in the mode to set the FOV for the camera. type in 70 and hit enter for a wide angle lens. 55 for typical camera angle field of view for most hand-held point-n-shoot cameras. I like FOV 60, gives a nice wide view, but less distortion on the far ends of the image. This will give your camera view a more realistic look.

[Fletch]

For your spherical sky try using the Lake Michigan Shore High Resolution Spherical Sky for Licensed Users This should improve greatly your reflections in the windows.

[Walt]

Thanks Fletch

[Walt]

The shadows are much better I'll need to do a closeup to see better results in the windows. I noticed it changed the hue color of the brick drive and the texture seems obscured. Where in other renders it was correct.

Just curious why do I keep getting "invalid file name" on some jpeg uploads

[Walt]

@ Fletch's suggestion to use a spherical background Lake Michigan Shore Hi Res the tone has a blueish tone to it. Any way to change that?

This example is not a completed Easy 08 render.